****A/N: Thank you, again, to everyone following Amelia's adventure! Special thanks, and a dedication, to wandwsawday for the amazing and insightful advise and comments. They are always welcome and appreciated!
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Amelia and Gertrude arrived at factory's row. The two women had already been violently coughing from the coal particles and sulfuric smell in the air. Amelia was in such physical distress she was questioning her resolve to follow through on her plan. "This is where the clouds gather, so this is where my answers should be," she thought to herself. Gertrude, as bubbly as ever, seemed more excited than any one person should be, to go into work. Amelia was suddenly overcome with guilt, knowing that this was just a means to an end for her, but it was the reality of Gertrude's life.
"You will have to speak with the foreman if you want a job here. It's long hours and hard work, but a girl as big and strong as you will have a much easier time than the lot of us," Gertrude assured her.
"Oh, the foreman? Where do we find him?" Amelia asked, a bit nervously.
"He'll find you. He can spot fresh meat from a mile away," Gertrude responded.
They were at the entrance to a massive building, with two smokestack rising from the top, pumping black clouds into the blue sky. The roaring inside was almost deafening. Gertrude took Amelia by the hand and they entered through a door on the side. Inside the building was an operation so scary, yet impressive, her heart almost skipped a beat. To one side were smelting pots of molten iron, steaming as the white-hot liquid simmered in their black bellies. To the other were dozens of men, some burly and muscular, others meager in appearance, banging enormous pieces of metal with large anvil-shaped hammers. The clanking coming from this operation alone was enough to give the steadiest person a throbbing migraine.
Gertrude pointed Amelia's gaze away from the hammering men upwards. There, she saw a second story to the factory where women were doing similar type of work, on a smaller scale. The women were too far away for Amelia to make out exactly what they were doing. A wave of fear and apprehension took over her, suddenly. The level where the women were working looked like a death trap from where Gertrude and Amelia were standing. There were no guard rails preventing tragedy happening from any worker's single misstep. The raised level was anything but level, as the floors looked to slant slightly towards the side of the building. Amelia took in the sight of what she was getting herself into, and a large lump started to form in her throat.
Gertrude tugged at Amelia's sleeve, ripping it at the seems a bit. The noise inside the building was so loud she could only see Gertrude mouth the word "sorry." She led her towards the rickety, wooden stairs that Amelia was deathly afraid would collapse at any moment. Though, Gertrude did not seem to pay any special attention to their perilous path. She felt so awful that all of the workers were so used to these conditions that they didn't seem to give anything a second thought. With great trepidation, she cautiously followed Gertrude to the upper work area. Once safely at the top of the stairs, Amelia gawked at the rows of women working around a long table. The table extend from the back of the factory, where the second story began, almost all the way to the stairs. There was certainly no room for error when walking around the table, as one step could lead to a deadly fall. Gawking, she saw more clearly that the women were fashioning what looked like large bolts or nails.
Out of the corner of her eye, Amelia saw a tall, dark man appear. The man was dressed to the nines in comparison to the rest of the people in the factory. He wore black slacks, a buttoned-up white shirt, a grey vest with a golden pocket watch tucked into a pocket, and a suit jacket to match the slacks. The man also carried a wooden cane with a golden handle in the shape of an eagle's head. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, and he had a perfectly manicured mustache and goatee. The sight of him was positively intimidating. As the man approached the two women, Amelia's stomach sank deeper and deeper into the pit of her body.
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Combustion (Book 1: The Spark)
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